| Unit name | French Fiction: from Realism to the 21st Century |
|---|---|
| Unit code | FREN20048 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | I/5 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
| Unit director | Professor. Stephens |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Units you must take before you take this one (pre-requisite units) |
None |
| Units you must take alongside this one (co-requisite units) |
None |
| Units you may not take alongside this one |
None |
| School/department | Department of French |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts, Law and Social Sciences |
Why is this unit important?
Why is literary fiction so important to French culture? What realities and viewpoints does it reveal to its readers? And how have writers developed the critical prestige of the French novel while enhancing its commercial popularity?
Beginning with the rise of the novel as the dominant literary genre in nineteenth-century Europe, this unit answers these questions by exploring the successive innovations that have made narrative fiction so significant to modern France and its overseas territories. It will familiarise you with different types and theories of fiction, as well as the contexts in which these literary experiments have taken place. In turn, it engages with a variety of themes that cut across the field of French and Francophone studies, including the formation of identity (such as gender, race, and class), the production of knowledge (be it historical insight or individual self-awareness), and the scrutiny of power (from narrative voice to moral and social authority). The unit therefore deepens your understanding of the relationship between language, literature, and everyday life.
How does this unit fit into your programme of study?
This unit broadens your knowledge and understanding of the French-speaking world while developing your skills of close reading, independent reasoning, and critical engagement. The unit’s emphasis on formal, thematic, and contextual analysis enhances your abilities to study a text’s style and complexity, to assert your own voice, and to research relevant secondary materials and scholarship (including key critical and conceptual approaches from literary theory and history). It also offers you the opportunity for comparative study between as well as beyond the primary sources that you will read so that you can further build your self-confidence when working individually and with others.
An overview of content
This unit examines the development of French fiction since the nineteenth century, when the artistic vogue for realism and the truthful representation of reality made the novel into the prominent and profitable literary form that we know today. It considers how and why French writers have used fiction as a means of reckoning with the changes that the modern period has brought both to individual and collective experience, not least urbanisation, mediatisation, and globalisation. The unit focuses on the novel’s wide-ranging capacity for commentary within various contexts (socio-historical, political, psychological, and philosophical) and across a range of genres, such as realism, modernism, ‘littérature engagée’, postmodernism, and popular forms like crime fiction. This focus is sharpened through a series of thematic lenses, including authorship, consumerism, desire, identity, and morality. Primary texts may vary from year to year and will cover novels by writers from within and beyond metropolitan France. These are likely to include some of the following: Gustave Flaubert, André Gide, François Mauriac, Simone de Beauvoir, Marguerite Duras, Sébastien Japrisot, Maryse Condé, Leïla Slimani, Virginie Despentes, and Michel Houellebecq. Each illustrates the French novel’s lasting interest in self-reflection and social observation.
How will students, personally, be different as a result of the unit?
By the early 2020s, France had more Nobel laureates in literature than any other nation, and the rentrée – the end of the summer vacation when children return to school – continues to see French publishers release the majority of their new titles in competition not only for sales but also for one of the country’s numerous literary prizes. Taking this unit, you will better understand why French fiction continues to matter in this national culture, which forms one of the largest book markets in the world. You will also hone your critical skills as independent thinkers, your engagement skills by working with others, and your personal effectiveness as a self-motivated learner.
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this unit, students will be able to:
Teaching will be delivered through weekly seminars which will be structured by tutor-led presentations. This input, both in class and online, will help you to acquire the relevant subject knowledge and to develop your skills in critical analysis, evidence-gathering, and strategic reading. It will model how to interpret the materials you will be studying and how to contextualise that understanding through wider research, as well as through independent inquiry.
Student-centred discussion in the seminars will then address and expand upon key questions about the unit content that arise from this research. Formative activities (both in small-group work and through individual reflections) will enable you to build, illustrate, share, and evaluate your own arguments – and to manage your time effectively – as you prepare for your assessments. That preparation will be consolidated in the closing week’s session, in which you will workshop different approaches to incorporating feedback from the tutor and from your peers into your final summative assessment.
Tasks which help you learn and prepare you for summative tasks (formative):
Tasks which count towards your unit mark (summative):
When assessment does not go to plan
When required by the Board of Examiners, you will normally complete reassessments in the same formats as those outlined above. However, the Board reserves the right to modify the form or number of reassessments required. Details of reassessments are normally confirmed by the School shortly after the notification of your results at the end of the academic year.
If this unit has a Resource List, you will normally find a link to it in the Blackboard area for the unit. Sometimes there will be a separate link for each weekly topic.
If you are unable to access a list through Blackboard, you can also find it via the Resource Lists homepage. Search for the list by the unit name or code (e.g. FREN20048).
How much time the unit requires
Each credit equates to 10 hours of total student input. For example a 20 credit unit will take you 200 hours
of study to complete. Your total learning time is made up of contact time, directed learning tasks,
independent learning and assessment activity.
See the University Workload statement relating to this unit for more information.
Assessment
The assessment methods listed in this unit specification are designed to enable students to demonstrate the named learning outcomes (LOs). Where a disability prevents a student from undertaking a specific method of assessment, schools will make reasonable adjustments to support a student to demonstrate the LO by an alternative method or with additional resources.
The Board of Examiners will consider all cases where students have failed or not completed the assessments required for credit.
The Board considers each student's outcomes across all the units which contribute to each year's programme of study. For appropriate assessments, if you have self-certificated your absence, you will normally be required to complete it the next time it runs (for assessments at the end of TB1 and TB2 this is usually in the next re-assessment period).
The Board of Examiners will take into account any exceptional circumstances and operates
within the Regulations and Code of Practice for Taught Programmes.
